Moonimite Al-Boston

I was there man! You just don't know, man, until you've lived it, man! I was right down fucking town when it was all going down, man!

Yesterday, the Boston police arrested Artist Peter Berdovsky for placing these devices. They (moonimites) consisted of several LED's and a activation device. You see, a lot of people thought these devices were suspicious so the mechanism of Homeland Security went into action and started water cannoning these bits of advertisements that Turner Broadcast had paid for to promote a TV show. Traffic was snarled, people were delayed, and there was a great gnashing of teeth. Kinda stupid to place some of them on bridges, but I guess if you're not planning a terror attack you probably wouldn't consider that people freak out pretty easily.
After my head exploded, I attempted to sort out the different angles as to why this is bizarre.

• A local artist participated in a guerrilla ad campaign sponsored by a large corporation, so my sympathies may not as great as they might have been. They probably will defend the artist tooth and nail, otherwise if he goes down the company can be held liable.
• The cops and DHS completely went into overkill. But when you have agencies and institutions more and more culturally removed from the various communities that they serve, it's no surprise.
• Society is so far removed from technology, that they can't distinguish a simple bread-board LED display from an explosive device. Everything is so prepackaged with electronic secrets locked beneath consumer friendly veneers, that we just don't know what goes on inside anymore.
• THEY have so distorted the whole issue of threat and terror, terrorising the masses themselves with threat, that we can't distinguish from nothing. Look at the picture of the device. It is funny. Organizations that utilize terror generally do not want to be laughed at, they take themselves quite seriously. (Maybe a single psychopath might, but I don't think the Joker is currently in town.)
• What could they possibly charge the artist with? Defacement of property with non-permanent markings? Aggravated making lite-brights that could be confused by a misinformed public that would create an over-reaction by the police and garner lots of media attention?
• Perception and semantics. What if someone reported a "weird" device rather than a "suspicious" device? What if someone reported a suspicious "lite-brite"?
  

The TV show being promoted? A cartoon geared toward adults starring a talking milkshake, a box of french fries, and a meatball.
Links

• Boing Boing "LED ad campaign ignites terrorism scare in Boston"
• Boing Boing "Boston Moonimite installer arrested"
• Peter Berdovsky's website
• Boston Globe "Froth, fear, and fury"

Hmm...I hear on the morning news there's a second arrest....

Addendum 2.1.07

Security specialist Bruce Schneier at Schneier on Security comments "Non-Terrorist Embarrassment in Boston"
Real fake bombs are found in Boston during the same time. No one freaks out. "Two fake pipe bombs found not part of marketing stunt"
"We've been trained to fear everything." Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing has a link to his interview on ABC.

It's getting really Kafka out there.

Addendum 2.2.07
Boing Boing has a link for these stickers out now.